


Safety Is What You Make of It

by SasuNarufan13



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Deaths, Description of Injuries, Drama, Established slash, Gore, Halloween Oneshot, M/M, Sakura's POV, Small bit of Naruto's pov at the end, Violence, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27313582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SasuNarufan13/pseuds/SasuNarufan13
Summary: When the undead roam the world, one cannot afford to be picky about safe places.
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 31
Kudos: 137





	Safety Is What You Make of It

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: So after vampires, fae, werewolves, ghosts, witches/healers and devils, I can now cross off zombie on my list :D I've got a couple of zombie themed fics in my planning, but here's the first one to test the waters LOL Also because it's Halloween and what's more fitting than this type of story then?
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishimoto owns it.
> 
> I hope you'll like this and I wish you all a Happy Halloween!

**Safety Is What You Make of It**

Her muscles were hurting with how tense they were, but she didn't dare to move yet, keeping her eyes pricked for any suspicious noise as she checked the street from her hiding place behind a crumbling wall.

She'd been walking around for three days straight now, only sleeping the bare minimum whenever she found a temporary safe place. There weren't many of those left, safe spaces that was, with the undead roaming around and taking over more and more of the world.

For a brief moment she wondered whether her best friend had managed to survive the stampede last month, but then ruthlessly pushed the thought down. There was no point in wondering about what ifs, because those would only consume her thoughts and she needed all her wits with her now that she was on her own.

Her hand tightened around the handle of her long knife and after waiting another moment she slowly started to move forwards, keeping her back against the wall for as long as possible. This particular street seemed to have escaped the worst of it, though some front doors were obviously kicked in and bloody handprints decorated several houses. She swallowed at the sight of it, but walked further.

She needed a place to stay for the night at least, so that she could get some proper sleep and rest. She was running on fumes now; adrenaline the only thing keeping her going for now. Even that was running out, however, and exhaustion was hovering at the edges of her consciousness, ready to take her under any minute now.

The last house at the end of the street on her right was what she was aiming for: it had a large towering gate surrounding it, which still looked in good condition. While the metal wouldn't be able to hold back an entire horde of the undead, it should give her enough time to escape if it turned out to be necessary. Its garden also went up in a small forest, giving her a place to hide. As far as she was able to tell, however, there didn't seem to be any horde present near this street. Hopefully it would remain like that until she was ready to move on.

Halting in front of the gate, she studied it carefully, worrying there would be a lock on it. There was one, but it wasn't in use and it was easy to push one part of the gate open a bit and slip inside. Closing the gate again as quietly as she could, she took a moment to look around.

The previous owners of this house must have left quite a while ago, because the grass was severely overgrown, easily reaching up to her knees and nearly covering some garbage bags from view.

Keeping her knife ready just in case, she shuffled forwards; the moon illuminating her path to the front door faintly. She rested her hand against it, giving it a light push to test it. It opened silently and she furrowed her eyebrows, instantly on high alert.

Considering how badly overgrown the garden was, she had expected the door hinges to be making noise as the door wouldn't have been opened in quite some time. The fact that it was silent instead, swinging open just as easily as it would have done when the family living here had opened it daily, told her that someone had been here recently – and might still be here.

Fuck, had she been too late? Should she just retreat and try out some of the other houses here? Several of them had busted doors, however, and wouldn't offer any form of protection should one of the undead decide to wander around here. The other two houses were too close to the open road, making it more difficult for her to make an escape if it was needed.

What to do, what to do …

After wavering for a long while, she sighed quietly and slipped inside. She would just have to take her chances here at this house and with whoever might still be –

"Who are you?"

She jumped and only barely managed to swallow her scream as she whirled around, spotting a blond man in the doorway to what perhaps was the kitchen.

He was dressed in a very worn looking dark blue shirt with a high collar and a pair of torn jeans. He didn't appear to be carrying any visible weapons, but she reminded herself that he could be hiding a gun behind his back. She'd made that mistake before and had nearly paid for it with her life.

"I haven't seen anyone around here in a while," the man went on, narrowing his eyes slightly. "How did you find this place?"

She could either try to attack him or run away, but she didn't like her chances with how fit he looked.

Shuffling her feet nervously, she licked her lips and answered, "I got separated from my group a while ago and I've been walking on my own ever since. I was just looking for a safe place to rest, that's all. This street seemed empty, I didn't know this place was already taken."

His face softened a fraction. "You got separated from your friends too, huh?" he said wryly and rubbed the back of his neck. "That seems to be the fate of a lot of people nowadays – that or getting eaten by those bastards, I suppose."

He eyed her carefully, his gaze momentarily sharpening when it landed on her knife. "How long has it been since you ate something?"

"A couple of days at least," she admitted after a pause. She did have some food tucked away in her backpack, but she was rationing it as much as possible.

Three years after the undead had started attacking humanity, food was getting scarcer. Most shops she encountered had been raided a long time ago, leaving barely a few cans behind. With no way to settle down and start growing her own food, she had to hope that she would come across a house or a store where some canned food had escaped other people's attention.

That wasn't so easy anymore, however, and there were often days when she had to content herself with only drinking water to still the hunger in an attempt to ration her food.

"Yeah, I know I'm never taking grocery stores for granted again after this," the man smiled faintly and jerked his head to the room behind him. "I was about to eat now; you want something too? It's all just canned food, but - "

"That's fine," she reassured him, allowing herself to relax just a tiny bit. "I've been trying to find some cans in the shops some miles back, but all the shelves were empty."

"Yeah, they were already like that when I got here," the man confirmed, beckoning her to follow him.

"Oh, you've been here for long?" she asked curiously, following him cautiously.

The footprints at the shops had looked rather old, but she hadn't paid much attention to them, too focused on hiding from a couple of stragglers.

"A little while," he answered vaguely, which was fair.

She wouldn't want to give too much information to a stranger either nowadays. The undead could be quite dangerous depending on their state of decomposition, but she had learnt the hard way that living humans could be just as dangerous, if not more, because they still possessed the ability to think and plan.

The undead just wanted to eat and attack; in that regard they were a lot easier to deal with. Just hack their heads off or stab them in the forehead and bam, they didn't get up anymore.

Dinner turned out to be some canned ravioli heated up on a stove which barely worked, but gave off enough heat to at least warm up the food somewhat. She wasn't picky, not anymore. Being picky only led to starving yourself with the world being like it was now.

"So you got separated from your group too, huh?" she asked, breaking the silence once they had been eating for a bit.

She normally wasn't one for small talk, but after being so long on the road without being able to talk to someone – someone who could actually reply that was – she had become tired of the silence.

He smiled humourlessly. "Yeah, we thought we had finally found a safe place, but we got a bit too careless one day. We had to split up when too many zombies were drawn to our spot and didn't think of agreeing on another meeting place. I've been trying to find the rest since then, but …" He shrugged and sighed. "I ended up here instead, figured I could stay at this house for a bit, try to decide what to do afterwards. Gate looks sturdy enough to keep those arseholes occupied for a while anyway."

"That's why I picked this house actually. Because of the gate," she smiled faintly.

"Great minds think alike," he grinned; his blue eyes glimmering in the stuttering T-light. "I'm Naruto, by the way."

"Sakura," she introduced herself.

He took both their bowls when they were finished and put them in the sink, washing them quickly with a bit of water. "You can stay here for a while if you want," he said, drying the first bowl off.

"You sure? I can leave, find another place," she said surprised.

He shrugged, drying off the second bowl. "The house is big enough for the two of us and hell, I wouldn't mind some company. The other one's not really that talkative."

"Other one?" she repeated sharply, her hand tightening around the knife underneath the table. There was someone else in this house? Could she even remain here then?

"Yeah, sorry, a friend of mine is here too, but he's staying at the shed." He pointed out of the window.

She stood up, careful to keep her distance and peered out into the garden. She could make out the shape of a shed of sorts at the backend of the garden, half hidden underneath a thick tree.

"Rather antisocial that guy, so promise me you won't go out there if you decide to stay here." He pursed his lips together. "He's gone through worse shit than I have and he doesn't react well to strangers."

"He doesn't come into the house?"

"No, we might be friends, but he prefers some distance. Says I snore too much and would end up clubbing me in the head." Blue eyes rolled. "So if you decide to stay here, just don't go out there, all right? Last thing I need right now is a fight between you two getting so loud that it draws the zombies here." He grimaced, wrinkling his nose.

"Sure, I promise," she said, a tad wary. She grabbed her backpack, figuring she might as well try to rest here. If he or his friend tried anything, they would be sorry. "Which room is yours?"

"I've set up my things in the living room, so you have free reign of the rest of the floors."

"Thanks, I'm going to try to catch some sleep now," she muttered.

"Yeah, good night."

"Good night."

Quietly she went upstairs, noting that both the stairs and the landing were hidden underneath thick, dusty carpet, muffling her footsteps. She considered the first floor for a moment before shaking her head and going up another floor. There was an attic, but it was one with a hatch and a small ladder you needed to pull down and she decided not to risk it. In case things went south, she would need to make a quick escape and that wouldn't be possible if she stayed at the attic.

There were four rooms on the second floor; one bathroom, two bedrooms and one that seemed to have functioned as some sort of study, judging by the desk half blocking the door and a pile of books collapsed next to it. She went for the bedroom at the end of the corridor. It must have belonged to a kid before, probably a girl, given that the walls were a bright pink and adorned with smiling flowers.

The sheets were a lavender purple and strewn about and kid's makeup was left behind on the small desk, next to half-finished homework. The original owners must have been taken by surprise and had immediately left, she assumed, because the room overall looked like it had been abandoned hastily, clothes lying in a heap in front of an open wardrobe.

There were two windows present; one looking out on the streets surrounding the place and the other one showing the garden. She stood there for a bit, watching the shed thoughtfully. There was no light present there, so she couldn't see anyone moving about. This friend of Naruto might actually already be asleep, given how late it was.

Dumping her bag on the desk, she unearthed the coil of thin rope and strong tape and set about rigging the door with it.

Naruto had appeared friendly enough, but she wasn't taking any chances. If he did decide to try to harm her, the rope would hold him back for a moment and the set of bells she attached to one end of it would alert her of his intentions on time.

That done, she pulled off her shoes, wriggling her toes and groaning quietly at the sensation of fluffy carpet underneath her bare feet, and laid down in the bed. It was a bit on the small side, forcing her to curl up, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and sleeping on an actual mattress beat sleeping on a wet, cold hard floor any day.

In spite of the shit she'd witnessed these past months, as soon as her head hit the pillow, exhaustion took over and she fell into a deep slumber.

* * *

After breakfast – dry cereals, but beggars couldn't be choosers – Sakura set about exploring the house more thoroughly, leaving Naruto to do whatever he did in the living room.

It didn't take long for her to make a rather disturbing discovery: nearly every room on the first floor had bags dumped in them. The bags obviously didn't belong to the original family; she checked several of them and all of them resembled her bag in a way, stocked with canned food, a spare set of clothes, bandages … There were no weapons as far as he could see, but it was clear that these bags had belonged to people who had found this house before her.

The question was: where the hell were all these people now? And why hadn't they taken their bags with them? None of them were empty, so they couldn't have been dumped for that reason. Perhaps some of them had been forgotten in a haste to escape the house for some reason, but that couldn't be the reason for all the abandoned bags. She counted at least twenty-five of them, all spread out throughout the first floor and even some in a room on the second floor.

Growing suspicious, she descended the staircase again, seeking out Naruto in the living room. He was on the couch, reading a dusty looking book he must have taken from one of the bookcases here. He looked up at her with a smile, but frowned when he took a good look at her.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his hand reflexively dipping to his hip.

"I was taking a look around the house – where do all those bags come from?" she questioned, waving her hand up at the ceiling. "I've counted at least twenty-five of them. I don't think they're yours, right?"

He snorted, sitting up straight and running a hand through his hair. "God no, they're not mine. I might have grown some muscles in the past few years, but definitely not enough to carry all those," he chuckled before growing sombre. "Honestly, I don't know. They were here already when I arrived and I figured I'd just let them be in case the owners would return. It's been a while since then and nobody has shown up, so …"

"You don't think it's odd that so many got left behind?" She furrowed her eyebrows, resting her hands on her hips.

"I think the whole world is odd now." He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Call me a heartless bastard, but I stopped caring about what happened to strangers a few years ago. I already have enough on my plate taking care of myself and my friend, I can't waste time on worrying about strangers now."

He had a point, she had to admit, but still it was strange how so many bags had been left behind when the house itself carried no signs of being broken into by the undead.

What on earth had happened that it had forced these people to leave their bags behind?

* * *

Despite the mystery of the abandoned bags, she remained in the house, resting as much as she could. It had been a long time since she last had been able to sleep this much without constantly having to be on guard and she wanted to catch up on sleep as much as possible before she would continue her journey.

Naruto himself didn't seem to have plans to leave the house any time soon. A couple of times each day he would leave the house to visit his friend in the shed and that was about it. Sakura herself hadn't even caught a glimpse of this friend, even though she had been staying at this place for a week already.

She could readily admit she was curious about this mysterious friend and his insistence on remaining secluded in the shed instead of coming inside the house, but she remembered Naruto's warning and stayed clear of the shed, not wanting to get into a possible fight with two men. She was pretty certain that at least Naruto carried a gun and she wasn't eager to land on the wrong side of it.

Aside from the mysterious friend and the abandoned bags, this house wasn't that bad honestly. Naruto was fun company and this place was so secluded that it barely attracted any undead. The couple of times she spotted one wandering through the street, they all kept quiet and the zombie would stagger away, leaving the street and going to wherever his mindless brain took him.

She could have found worse places to stay at, that was for sure.

* * *

Voices right outside her window woke her up and she stumbled out of the bed, yawning and rubbing her eyes. She was instantly awake when she recognised Naruto's voice, but the second one was higher pitched and definitely female. Not his friend then.

She pulled the curtains aside and peered out of the window. The moon was half full, allowing her to spot Naruto's blond hair immediately. He was standing in the middle of the path, talking to a red haired girl. She was dressed in short jeans, a purple tank top and a long jacket and a bright red bag was slung over her left shoulder.

Naruto nodded to whatever the girl told him and then they both disappeared from view, walking into the house. Sakura tilted her head to the left, hearing both voices downstairs now, making their way to the kitchen.

It seemed they had a new guest. She'd meet her in the morning, she decided, and climbed back in bed after checking the string was still strung up.

* * *

The girl was called Karin and just like Sakura, she had spotted this house and deemed it safe enough to rest. She had been a nurse until the zombies appeared, she informed them, and since then she'd been wandering around solitary, not letting herself be absorbed in groups.

"Why not?" Sakura asked curiously, leaning against the counter. "Safety in numbers, no?"

Karin snorted, throwing her hair back. It was loose for now, brushing across her shoulders every time she moved. "There's also death in numbers. I'd rather not risk getting eating by those bastards or killed by the human bastards, all because the food runs out. I've seen it happening before at the start and no, thank you, I'd like to stay alive."

"Don't we all?" Naruto grinned, handing over a can of tuna to her.

"I don't think I'll stay here for long either," she admitted and opened the can. "I'm sure you're lovely people, but I got used to being on my own."

He shrugged. "You can stay as long as you want, just try not to attack us." His tone was joking, but his eyes were slightly cool; the warning more than clear.

Karin just grinned, raising the can in a mock salute. "No worries, I haven't completely lost my mind yet." She winked.

Sakura supposed that was the best they were going to get from a stranger.

* * *

A short scream, filled with terror.

That was all that was needed for Sakura to fly out of her bed, snatching her knife from underneath the pillow. Heart beating like mad, she rushed over to the window facing the street. When she couldn't immediately spot anything moving there, she ran over to the other window, but nothing in the garden either.

Quickly she disabled her alarm system and hurried downstairs, where she met Naruto in the hallway, looking on high alert with his hand resting on a katana of all things.

"What the hell was that?" she whispered furiously, trying to calm down enough so that her heartbeat wouldn't be so awful loud in her ears.

"No idea," he answered clipped. "You've seen Karin?"

"What? No." Her eyes widened and she ran upstairs again to the first floor where she knew Karin had taken over a room. The room was empty, the bed not appearing to have been slept in.

"She isn't there!" she announced, going back downstairs. "Did she tell you anything about leaving?"

"Nope." Naruto's answer was terse as he walked back to the living room.

When she followed him, she saw him standing near the window, peering through it. "I don't see her in the street either, but we should assume that whoever screamed, could be attracting zombies, so we need to be on our guard tonight."

"We're not going out there to look for her?" she asked aghast.

He briefly glanced at her, giving her an unimpressed look. "You want to throw yourself into danger, be my guest," he said shortly. "But it's night and I can barely see out there. I'm not risking my life just because she was apparently stupid enough to leave in the middle of the night."

She hated that he was right. Going outside now, in nothing but darkness, with potential zombies roaming around was suicide. She knew that, but she hated it at the same time.

Because while a part of her wanted to go outside there anyways, consequences be damned, to help Karin, a larger part – her self-preservation skills, Ino would quip – had her remain rooted in the house, unwilling to leave it and risk her life for a stranger.

She hated how this apocalypse had stolen their own humanity in a way.

* * *

They remained on guard for the rest of the night, but Karin didn't return and only one zombie tried to get through the gate. Naruto made quick work of that one, slicing it in two with his katana, sporting a grim look.

It was on the tip of Sakura's tongue to ask why Naruto's friend hadn't shown up even once, because surely he must have heard that scream too? Even with being so asocial, he should have become curious enough to find out who had been screaming and why, no?

In the end she didn't dare to ask, because Naruto seemed to be in a rather foul mood ever since they had heard the scream and she wasn't about to make it even worse by nagging him about his friend. Hell, maybe his friend was deaf and that was why he chose to seclude himself. She wouldn't want to expose herself to the unknown either if she was down one of her senses.

* * *

Karin didn't return the next day either or the day after that and Sakura couldn't help but be uneasy about that.

The girl had told them she wasn't planning on staying for long, that was true, but her disappearance directly after the scream didn't sit right with Sakura. Had Karin gone outside and encountered one of the undead? If so, why had she decided to go outside during the night when she should have known she'd be at a disadvantage? She hadn't appeared that dumb and she had managed to survive for this long.

Nothing made sense.

* * *

Four nights after Karin's disappearance had Sakura lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. She had a hard time falling asleep, feeling too restless, and with a sigh she climbed out of bed again. Maybe she should go outside for a bit to have some fresh air. She'd stay in the garden of course, but perhaps being outside would clear her mind enough to finally allow her to get some sleep.

She grabbed her knife just to be on the safe side and silently made her way downstairs, passing the darkened living room. She went into the kitchen next and opened the door leading to the garden.

She hadn't been in this part of the garden yet, not having had any reason to, and figured that as long as she stayed clear of the shed, she would be fine. Naruto's friend could hardly get mad at her for simply walking around, right?

It had rained earlier tonight, the fresh scent of the rain lingering in the air still and she inhaled deeply, wandering away from the house. The garden was rather large and on her right there were the remains of a pond. It was dried up by now and any fish that might have been in it was long gone. She stood staring at it for a while, remembering how one of her neighbours had had a pond as well, filled with colourful koi. He was probably dead by now, already quite old by the time the zombies had risen up.

Shaking her head to get rid of the morbid thought, she walked away from the pond, brushing some insects from her legs. It was quite silent, not even crickets chirping, and the silence was quite deafening. At least she would be able to hear a zombie coming from a mile away, she mused humourlessly and wandered deeper into the garden.

She looked down to get rid of another insect and that was when she spotted it: a bright red bag almost entirely hidden underneath a thorny rose bush.

The exact same red bag Karin had been carrying around.

Dumfounded she stood there staring at it before she carefully approached it, bending down to take a closer look at it. She hoped she was mistaken, but no. Her stomach rolled when she acknowledged that this was definitely Karin's bag. What was it doing all the way over here?

She looked up, stilling when she saw how close she was to the shed. She hadn't been paying any attention to it at all, too focused on the bag, but now it was as if she could stare at nothing else. The shed was only around five feet away from the bush and the bag; what had Karin been doing here? She was pretty certain Naruto had given her the same warning about his friend.

Had Karin decided to ignore the warning and had come out here after all? But that didn't explain why she was gone now or why she had left her bag behind here. If she had disappeared from this very spot, where was she now? Did Naruto know about the bag?

She turned to look at the house, suddenly feeling quite uneasy. Naruto checked on his friend several times each day, could he possibly have missed the bag during these past three days? That seemed hard to believe considering Sakura could quite clearly see it and it was currently night.

But why hadn't Naruto said anything about it then? Karin having seemingly disappeared from the garden, just a few feet away from the shed – shouldn't that have rung any alarm bells? Even if they were virtually strangers, shouldn't the right thing have been to try to figure out what Karin had been doing here before she disappeared?

She stood there wavering for a little while longer, not knowing what to do. Go back inside the house and confront Naruto about the bag? What if he honestly hadn't seen it? What if he had? Friendly as he had been so far, she didn't know him at all. Would one question too many make him snap? If he had known about the bag, what could be his motive to keep it a secret from her? Was it just his decision not to care about strangers?

And his friend, what was his part in all of this? Why did he never leave the shed? What was she missing?

Narrowing her eyes, she gazed at the shed, taking in the darkened windows and the closed door. Asocial or not, Naruto's friend might have witnessed what had happened to Karin. He would just have to suck up his asocial nature for now and help them find Karin back. It was the least they could do in this godforsaken world; perhaps the only thing still that separated them from the undead wreaking havoc.

Decision taken, she closed the distance in just a few strides and knocked firmly on the door. She waited for a couple of seconds, but heard nothing, and knocked again, figuring the man could be fast asleep.

Still nothing.

Frowning, growing a bit irritated even, she tested the doorknob by pressing it down. If this was locked, she would just keep battering the door until the guy had to get up, but the door simply opened, creaking a bit.

There was absolutely no light in the shed; it was so dark she couldn't even see the outline of any stuff that might be stored here and her hand wandered across the wall closest to her, in search of a light switch. Right as her finger touched something that felt like a switch, an odd low moaning sound echoed from deeper within the shed, making her freeze.

"Hello?" she called out cautiously, her hand still outstretched. "Naruto's friend? I'm sorry for barging in on you, but I just need to ask you some questions about a girl who stayed here at the house recently."

No answer, except for the same odd moaning sound; this time followed by something that sounded suspiciously like teeth gnashing loudly together.

"What the hell?" she muttered, a bit disturbed, and flicked on the switch before she could reconsider.

The lights flickered once, twice, three times and then came fully to life, flooding the shed with a yellowish hue. At once Sakura wished she hadn't switched on the light.

She now knew why Naruto had forbidden her from going into the shed.

She could only stand there, paralysed with fear, as the undead man groaned loudly, his black eyes rolling wildly as he tried to locate her. He was missing his left arm, the stump hidden by a ragged sleeve, and his skin had acquired the same deadly pale shade all the undead seemed to have. There were bruises all across his face, a chunk of his right cheek missing, showing a glimpse of blood stained teeth. Blood was streaked down the sides of his face, all the way to his chest, soaking into his white shirt.

The stench of pure death was utterly revolting and she couldn't understand how she hadn't picked up on that stench before. The zombie was shackled with his remaining arm and his two legs to the floor, allowing him just enough pull to get to the middle of the shed. His dark eyes finally landed on her and the zombie roared, snapping his teeth at her, straining forwards with so much power the shackles were pulled taut.

_What the fuck was going on here?_

Horrified, terrified, she stumbled backwards, preparing to run, but a sharp tip pressing against her back had her freezing instead; her heartbeat thunderous in her ears.

"I keep warning everyone and nobody wants to listen," Naruto said, sounding genuinely upset. "What is it with everyone and refusing to listen? Just one warning you needed to heed; you were doing so well, why did you have to go and fuck it up now?"

"Naruto," she hated how her voice was trembling so audibly, "what the hell is going on here?"

It seemed like such a stupid question to ask when faced with a ravenous zombie in front of her and a man wielding a katana behind her, but her mind was stuck on that inquiry, desperate to know why on earth anyone would keep a zombie shackled in a shed and not destroy him.

"I told you, my friend stays here," he answered impatiently, the tip of his katana pressing just the slightest bit deeper into her spine, pricking through her shirt. "What else does it look like?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe it looks like you're keeping a fucking zombie shackled in a damn shed?!" she said hysterically, which only enraged the zombie further.

"You're all the same," Naruto muttered darkly. "Only seeing him as a monster and not as my friend. What the hell is the matter with you lot?"

"What the hell is the matter with us?" she spluttered. "You're the one keeping a dead person locked away! What the hell is wrong with _you_!"

"Nothing's wrong with me," he hissed, amidst the zombie's hungry moaning. "Sasuke and I promised each other to stay together, no matter what. I'm keeping my word, that's all."

"Naruto, he's dead!" she said horrified, pleading, trying to make the man see sense. "There's nothing of him left!"

"Yes, there is," he said and his deadly calm tone sent shivers down her spine. "He's still Sasuke, still my friend. The bite didn't change that."

"Look, just – I'll go, okay," she said desperately, sweat beading across her forehead and in her neck; the fear of being trapped between two dangers making it hard for her to speak. "I'll leave and you won't ever have to see me again. I promise I'll leave you two alone and forget about this."

"No can do," he said. "You people have the nasty habit of trying to tell others about him or even trying to harm him. I can't let that happen."

"Is that what Karin tried to do, harm him?" she asked, mouth dry.

"Hm, she thought she was above my warning and decided to snoop around. Like I said, Sasuke doesn't like being disturbed," he snickered; the sound a sharp contrast with the raging and groaning zombie in front of them. "So we punished her."

As if directed by an invisible force, her gaze unwillingly left the zombie and switched to the left of him where she could see the remains of a half devoured leg, the foot in the sneaker dangling by the last shred of muscle.

_She was going to be sick._

"You're fucked up," she whispered horrified.

He uttered an affronted noise. "Sasuke's got to eat too, you know. Wouldn't be fair if I was the only one eating. Now if you don't mind, Sasuke's looking a bit peckish."

She whirled around, panic making her rush forwards, but the katana swung low in the air before suddenly halting. She didn't get what was going on at first, why Naruto just stood grinning at her or why she didn't seem to be able to move.

Then she looked down, down at her thighs where the katana had sliced her clean to the bone, blood welling up around the blade. He pulled it away then, blood spurting out in every direction, and at once the pain rushed over her and she screamed, blinding pain making her fall backwards.

The last thing she heard before a strong arm clamped around her shoulder, dragging her backwards, teeth ripping into the side of her face, was Naruto's cheerful, "Enjoy your dinner, love!"

* * *

He smiled at the lanky, white haired guy, offering him some canned peas. "Sure, you can stay as long as you like. The house is big enough for the two of us," he said cheerfully.

"Just remember: don't go to the shed. My friend's not really a people person if you get what I mean."

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> AN2: Fitting for Halloween? I let you decide.
> 
> Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.
> 
> I hope to see you all back in my future stories! Please stay safe, stay spooky and take care of yourselves!
> 
> Cuddles
> 
> Melissa


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